The present application is related to a pin fin heat exchanger with pins having an airfoil profile.
Heat exchangers capable of drawing heat from one place and dissipating it in another place are well known in the art and are used in numerous applications where efficiently removing heat is desirable. One type of heat exchanger used in fluid cooling systems dissipates heat from two parallel fluid passages into a cooling fluid passage between the passages. A cooling fluid (such as air) is then passed through the cooling fluid passage. Heat from the parallel fluid passages is drawn into the cooling fluid passage and is expelled at the opposite end of the heat exchanger with the cooling fluid. Heat exchangers of this type are often used in vehicle applications such as aircraft engines or car engines.
Devices constructed according to this principle transfer heat from the surface area of the parallel passages into the fluid flowing through the cooling fluid passage. In order to increase the surface area which is capable of dissipating heat, some heat exchangers have added pins extending from the walls of the parallel fluid passages into the air gap. The pins are thermally conductive and thus heat can be conducted from the passages into the pins and dissipated into the cooling fluid. The pins can be held in place using crossed ligaments. A device according to the above described design is referred to as a pin fin heat exchanger. The ligaments also provide more surface area which the fluid being forced through the cooling fluid passage is exposed to, and thereby allow a greater dissipation of heat. Some designs in the art utilize pins where each pin is connected to both of the parallel fluid passages resulting in a post running perpendicular to the parallel fluid passages through the gap. Current heat exchangers using pins have a symmetrical pin profile such as a circular or diamond profile.